By MATT LINDSEY

POTSDAM — Potsdam Central School will welcome a new middle school principal as well as ten new faculty members for the 2017-18 school year.

Total enrollment for the year is 1,263 pupils with 86 pre-k students currently signed up to attend school this year.

“We are very pleased to welcome Daniel Cook as the new principal of A.A. Kingston Middle School,” PCS Superintendent Joann Chambers said.

PCS underwent a few renovations this summer, mainly in the A.A. Kingston Middle School. The district will also implement their Positivity Project in an effort to nurture the social and emotional development of all students.

“Last spring, we engaged in a Strategic Planning Process and developed a three-year plan for the district,” she said. “We identified the data we felt was most meaningful, including graduation rates, measures of rigor for high school students, student achievement data, chronic absenteeism data, and elementary reading data, and then set targets for where we would like to be in 2020.”

New Faculty and Staff

Cook is a 2004 graduate of Potsdam Central School and a 2008 graduate of SUNY Cortland. He holds a master’s degree in curriculum, assessment, and instruction and educational leadership.

For the past nine years he has been at Tupper Lake Central School. Chambers said. For the first eight of those years, he was a mathematics teacher, coach, department leader, and union vice president.

During the last year, Cook was a district administrator where his three main duties were serving as athletic director, middle/high school dean of students, and lead evaluator.

“The hiring committee, administrative team and Board of Education felt Mr. Cook would be a great fit for the middle school,” Chambers said. “His warm and engaging personality, strong work ethic, and deep concern for students are a winning combination.”

Other new hires in the district include middle and high school health teacher Lisa Bradley, elementary special education teacher Beth Chambers-Barney, middle school teacher aid Ashlee Flener and middle school music teacher Matthew Gayle.

Other new additions include bus driver and custodial worker Patricia Gonyou, high school special education teacher Margaret James, middle school counselor Christopher Johnson, fifth grade teacher Paul Van Leuven, elementary teaching assistant Jillian Tardelli and elementary teaching assistant Carey White.

Former middle school principal Mark Bennett and middle school vounselor Tisha White will both be at the high school this year, Chambers added. Kim Miller, former high school counselor, has transferred to the middle school while middle School music teacher Laura DiMatteo will also be at the high school this year.

Changes at the School

“We have had a few projects underway this summer, including some interior painting,” Chambers said about any summer renovation work done this year. “The most significant change, however, is in the middle school. The large group instruction room (LGIR) has undergone an amazing transformation, with the tiered seating removed and new carpeting installed. This renovation will give us much greater flexibility in how this instructional space is used.”

The school will be launching a new district website on Monday, Aug. 28. Parents should be receiving the 2017-18 district calendar in the mail soon.

Strategies were identified to help the school reach those goals and, finally, determined four priority areas on which the district will focus for the 2017-18 school year, Chambers said. These areas include: Implement strategies - including the Positivity Project - that nurture the social and emotional development of all students; implement a fair, consistent, developmentally appropriate student code of conduct; collaborate PK-12 to align curriculum and share instructional practices and lastly, to improve the PK-12 schedule to better meet student and staff needs (this goal will include looking at various options for school start times).

“We are very excited to be implementing the Positivity Project Pre-K through 12 next year,” she said. “Many of our staff have attended training, and teachers in all three buildings have been working together this summer to develop their building-level plans.”

The Positivity is aimed building character strengths and realizing and concentrating on commonalities ground instead of differences.

On Tuesday, Sept. 26, PCS will host a Positivity Project event for parents with program founders Mike Erwin and Jeff Bryan. The event will be held in the middle school starting at 6:30 p.m. The next day, Erwin and Bryan will work with a student leadership team at the high school. They will also offering a full-day workshop for area teachers Sept. 26.

Though the school’s Smart Schools Bond Act application was submitted in the summer of 2016, they only recently received word that it has been approved, according to Chambers.

“We are pleased to be able to begin working on the technology infrastructure upgrades that will allow our district to quickly move to a 1:1 device environment. We have been purchasing iPads and Chromebooks for students PreK-12 over the last few years and anticipate having a device for each child by the end of next school year. “

She said the school is devoting a lot of attention to providing its teachers with professional development that will allow them to design engaging lessons for students through the use of technology. “We have also begun teaching a digital citizenship curriculum to all students, understanding that we have a responsibility to help our students safely navigate the digital world,” she added.

Childcare, Food, Busing and Orientations

Both the Latchkey Child Care program at Lawrence Avenue Elementary School and the Beyond the Bell Program at A.A. Kingston Middle School will continue for the 2017-18 school year. Parents interested in more info about the programs can contact the main office in the elementary or middle school.

School breakfast price is $2.30 for all students. School lunch price is $2.30 for students in pre-k through eighth grade and $2.40 for students in grades 9-12.

No major busing changes are anticipated; any minor changes in routes will be communicated directly to those families impacted, Chambers said.

Freshmen orientation is planned Aug. 30 from 10 a.m. to noon. The fifth grade orientation and cookout is set for Aug. 30 from 5 to 7 p.m. A.A.K. Middle School will hold their open house Sept. 13 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. High school open house will be held Sept. 14 from 6:30 until 8 p.m. Lawrence Avenue Elementary School “Meet the Teacher Night” is scheduled for Sept. 21 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.